well,
she messed up bringing Harriet Tubman and her words into an acceptance speech..
She should have used her words thanks and honor and not brought heavy into it..
even if she didn’t know it it put discrimination in her acceptance.
Anyways, who cares.. It’s dumb stuff..
now days- bad/nasty twitter’s gives a public figure more air time more acknowledgment and a lot more attention.
It works great for Trump lol

I am really surprised by the anger so many viewers have expressed about Ms. Davis’s mention of Harriet Tubman. Why are so many white viewers so offended by this? I am an African American myself, old enough to remember a world where our civil rights were not a given and had to be fought for. I remember as a child in the 1960s that we “Negros” considered successes on the platform of the arts an expression of our integration into and acceptance by white society: Sidney Poitier’s Oscar, Motown acts on Ed Sullivan, Dianne Carroll starring in “Julia.” We cheered all “firsts” because it was a signal to Negros (as we called ourselves) that progress had been made.

White people may not think of these things as progress, because for whites they are the norm! For the whole of the history of the Television Academy the Best Actress in a Drama Emmy was given to a white woman. So, for whites, eh, no biggie. For the first time in 67 years an African American woman won. In her speech Ms. Davis was celebrating yet another milestone that reminds African Americans that we too are part of the polity. If she had used the speech to rant racist cant and damn white people for making us wait, I would understand your anger with her speech. With all the racism today, the shootings (of folk who wouldn’t have been shot if they had listened to the cops) and the hostility they have created from black and whites, what is wrong with an African American celebrating our inclusion in the realm of acting recognition? She was celebrating inclusion, not spouting race hate. For many white people Ms. Davis’s award meant nothing, yet they are angry that it meant something HUGE to Ms. Davis and to many African Americans. It was meaningless to whites, but big to blacks. Why is it so offensive that she marked what to us was a big deal: further proof that racial barriers have fallen? Isn’t this something that all good Americans should celebrate? Something good happening in the realm of race? And if you parse Harriet Tubman’s comments, they are about whites helping blacks make progress!!!! That was the point!!!!! It was racially inclusive and a celebration of one woman’s inclusion, which she took to be symbolic of a people.

It seems that these younger generations have little grasp of history. In the lives of many of us still alive: we couldn’t go into certain stores, or ride buses where we chose, or be dramatic leads on TV shows. Ms. Davis was acknowledging progress in our great country, which was undercut by so many people angry that she alluded to the progress. As Americans, any sign of racial progress — no matter how meaningless to those historically unsophisticated — should be cause for celebration.

Had NLG just waited one day to make her points no one would have cared. She unwisely chose to piss on a moment that for many black was historically resonant. The symbolism of her timing is what annoyed me. Not her original comments.

Seriously, if so many whites are so offended by blacks celebrating a happy milestone, with words that celebrated racial inclusion (again, read Ms. Tubman), I fear for the future of race relations.

It’s clear that Davis was mum on NLG because she is extremely perturbed with NLG and didn’t want to make matters worse. I will ignore the larger, more important, issue of race relations and dive right into social media.

Social media will lead to the downfall of society. Look at the tremendous backlash to NLG for her tweets. In a sense, I suppose that our interactions here at the Fairman site are a part of social media. Yet I have seen much divisiveness and harmful effects coming from FaceBook, Twitter, and their ilk. I was briefly on FB but left when I realized it wasn’t for me. Exposing such great detail about personal matters to a world wide web audience is dangerous. In a real-world setting, would any of us leave our home doors open for any and all to view and enter? If not, then why do so many do so figuratively in social media? And the reliance on social media in lieu of face-to-face interactions has psychological ramifications.

NLG used the twitersphere platform for her opinions to ill effect. We are all entitled to our opinions, of course. Any opinion is bound to alienate at least one segment of society. One can opine that the sky is blue, and there will always be those who disagree.

Nancy Lee Grahn’s tweets were so uncalled for really? Now she had to go back and apologize, which was good, but still, never been fan of her’s and never will. GH good luck with this actress on your show, well there’s hardly any minorities on GH anyway, so she want have to worry so much!

Food for thought…Everyone has their own way of accepting an award. Viola had hers, and I can’t say I blame her…certainly not on racial grounds. It was 75 years ago Hattie McDaniel graciously accepted her Academy award as best supporting actress in Gone With The Wind. She was incidentally the first negro, as she was called then, to receive one, in a segregated venue where her director had to get special permission for her to be admitted and given a table. Since then there has been Sidney Poitier, Denzel, Whoopi, Harry Belafonte, and others that have won awards, and continued to pave the way with more and more challenging roles. But always with other nominees and audiences over-whelmingly white.

And other actresses have been vocal about the roles available, and offered to women.

Nancy has a right to think and feel what she tweets about, but in this case the timing was all wrong. It was Viola’s night…her party.

I want to address what the article above said that Nancy Lee Graham asserted that Viola Davis was a part of an elite group of actresses that had never been held back by discrimination.

In 2014, Oprah Winfrey had a special on OWN where African-American actresses were invited to come and discuss their issues and experiences trying to get work in Hollywood. They also talked about how those experiences had affected them personally. The participating actresses included Viola and others who Nancy would probably consider elite.

After reading many of the comments on this page and comments on the initial article posted about Nancy Lee Graham’s tweets, I am understanding that the special that aired on OWN was not seen by a lot of non-African-Americans. If they had seen that special and heard the discussion among the participating actresses, they would have understood Viola’s speech. If Nancy Lee Graham had seen the special maybe she would not have gone on a rant the way she did.

I am not saying that Nancy (and other non-African-Americans) would have agreed with everything said on the show but it would have given them a better understanding of the perspective Viola was articulating when she won her Emmy.

I think this so called controversy would have never taken place.

Now I will tell you exactly how I feel about persons who do not like it when African-Americans speak about their experiences in this nation and tell us to “shut up” about it. I am tired of it. As far as I am concerned whoever does not like it can go jump into the hole of the nearest port-a-potty! I for one will continue to speak about the African-American experience whenever and wherever I feel it is relevant to the topic at hand. Anyone who does not like it can… You know!

Before taking to twitter perhaps Nancy should have asked herself besides Debbi Morgan, how many African-American actresses have had the privilege to work in daytime for 30+ years? It seems Nancy has forgotten her own “elite class” including the likes of Deidre Hall, Susan Lucci, Katherine Kelly Lang, Kristian Alfonso, Melody Scott (I could go on and on and on…) It should take nothing more than a look at her daytime community to understand the need for diversity. If Nancy is such a champion for human rights and women’s rights she should understand and celebrate Viola’s much deserved accomplishment.

Twitter and Facebook are pernicious awful platforms. That said, I applaud Nancy, and no, speaking the truth as one sees it is not racist. Like I said in another post about something different, this country now is about groups, which is the total antithesis of our philosophy as different people who choose a common set of values, liberty, individualism and hard work, not ethnicity or nationality. Being an actress in Hollywood and winning an Emmy are luxuries and privileges of an elitist few, many who aren’t any more talented than anyone else. People need to grow up and stop looking for reasons to be offended. If most people in this country alive today were here a century ago, we would have NEVER won the two world wars, and the world may not even be here as we know it today. Hollywood is a bunch of pampered elitists who have zero clue how reality works, so it’s very easy to spout off lazily thought-out ideals that mask our real problems of ignorance, laziness, self entitlement, apathy and lack of a work ethic and can-do attitude that made this county great. Now we’re a bunch of apologizing weak feckless crybabies laughed at by the rest of the world. That’s why I don’t support Hollywood and I only watch scripted programming in daytime serial format. Start preaching, and I’m done. Oh by the way, before anyone responds with some hateful liberal rhetoric, I’m gay, Catholic, white skin from European background, and dark features from my native American background. I don’t want to hear about victims. Everyone has been challenged. Accepting challenges and defeating what stands in your way, no matter what your background, is what makes us, as individuals great, because every single one of us is a minority. Mob/group/demographic mentality is primitive and un-American and un-civilized. Unfortunately, America is on that path that cannot be reversed, and I’m glad I’m over half way to the goal line, because an angry, offended, fractured nation of lazy-minded victims doesn’t appeal to me.